Agricultural balers have been used to consolidate and package crop material to facilitate the storage and handling of the crop material for later use. Typically, a mower-conditioner cuts and conditions the crop material for windrow drying in the sun. When the cut crop material is properly dried, a baler, for example a round baler, the most frequently used in industry, travels along the windrows to pick up the crop material and form the material into cylindrically-shaped round bales.
More specifically, the cut crop material is gathered at the front of the baler from along the ground, onto a pickup assembly, and introduced into a bale-forming chamber within the baler. Inside the cut crop is rolled up into a predetermined size. A conventional bale chamber may include a pair of opposing sidewalls with a series of belts, chains, and/or rolls that rotate and compress the crop material into the cylindrically-shaped round bale. When the predetermined size is achieved, the cylindrically-shaped round bale is wrapped and bound by net wrapping or other wrapping such as plastic wrapping and wire. After the round bale is wrapped, the back of the baler, or tailgate, opens and the wrapped bale is discharged.
The net wrapping bound onto the bale is fed from a net roll and into a net wrapper assembly, conventionally located in the front of the baler. The net wrapping is then wrapped around a circumference of the bale in the bale chamber. Conventional net wrapping systems include a series of spreader rolls that extend between opposing sides of the baler and engage the net wrapping as the net wrapping is fed through the net wrapper assembly to the bale. The engagement of the net wrapping with these spreader rolls attempts to cause the net wrapping to be moved outward toward the opposing sides of the baler to maintain the width of the net wrapping as it traverses through the net wrapper assembly to be wrapped across the width of the bale. During operation of these conventional net wrapping systems, however, it may become difficult to maintain the width of the net wrapping as it traverses through the net wrapper assembly. An improved method and system for feeding net wrapping to wrap a bale is needed.